Following the Great Flu Scare, a lot of shops and restaurants have decided not to accept cash payments. And yet, as I understand it, cash is legal tender, and therefore when offered as payment they are obliged to accept it.
What, then, should happen under the following circumstances:
- I go to a restaurant for a meal, eat my food and request the bill
- I produce the cash with which to pay, but am told the restaurant only accepts card payments
- I do not actually have a card on my person, so cannot pay for my meal despite offering valid legal tender
Under such conditions, am I entitled to effectively have a free meal, because the restaurant has voluntary declined to receive payment which it is legally obliged to accept? Or am I showing a total lack of understanding?
Following the Great Flu Scare, a lot of shops and restaurants have decided not to accept cash payments. And yet, as I understand it, cash is legal tender, and therefore when offered as payment they are obliged to accept it.
What, then, should happen under the following circumstances:
- I go to a restaurant for a meal, eat my food and request the bill
- I produce the cash with which to pay, but am told the restaurant only accepts card payments
- I do not actually have a card on my person, so cannot pay for my meal despite offering valid legal tenderUnder such conditions, am I entitled to effectively have a free meal, because the restaurant has voluntary declined to receive payment which it is legally obliged to accept? Or am I showing a total lack of understanding?
I have encountered this. I had assumed if the business displays clear and unambiguous signs that transactions must be electronic then they can argue they have a contractual right to expect you to settle the bills electronically. Where they do not and have been less than reeasonable about their preference, I have deliberately insisted on my right to pay cash - and receive change and have not offered any card as an alternative. I have had shopkeepers melt down. I have had assistants look as embarrassed as they can behind face muzzles. I have generally left the exact money on the counter or table and in some cases have insisted on being given a receipt for the sum. Nowhere has this been refused.
legal tender has a very narrow misunderstood definition:
If you have a money debt you are able to use legal tender to settle it. If you have no debt, no-one is obliged to contract with you. They can set their own terms for that. They can insist you pay in gold, sacks of horse manure or lead ingots or whatever they please.
Not legal tender, but don't forget that if they agree to take a cheque you can give it to them written on a cow:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Inland_Revenue_v_Haddock
Thanks for your replies. So it seems that if I were to consume a meal, having not been notified of any specific conditions of payment, I would be at liberty to insist on paying with cash, or else consider my debt settled. Good to know.
Of course, I don't intend to deliberately go around making trouble, but I have made a particular effort to only use cash since the first lockdown, and am now in the position of having to organise a pub meal. It seems a lot of pubs, here in Surrey, at least, are all to keen to hasten their downfall by insisting on card payments.
Thanks for your replies. So it seems that if I were to consume a meal, having not been notified of any specific conditions of payment
But you admit you have been notified. Else you would not know?
@ben-shirley You cannot insist on paying in cash, and if you walk out you will still owe the debt.
However you can enter a 'defence of tender' against that debt and the court will accept cash (as long as you attend the court to deposit the cash). That cash, in Sterling, will then be offered to the restaurant as settlement.
So you can't demand that you pay the restaurant in cash for a debt, but you can pay a court in cash which will then prevent the restaurant sueing you in court for that debt.
Of course once you add court costs, this would be a very expensive way of paying for dinner.
If I didn't have a card, I'd ask for their bank details and send the money across from my bank later.
